Elon Musk Said to Cut Tesla Staff by 10 Percent, Pause Worldwide Hiring

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy and that the electric carmaker needed to cut staff by around 10%, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.

The email, titled "pause all hiring worldwide," was sent to Tesla executives on Thursday.

Tesla was not immediately available for comments.

Musk earlier this week asked Tesla employees to return to the office or leave the company.

"Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week," Musk wrote in another email sent to employees on Tuesday night.

"If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned."

In response to the memo that was tweeted from an unverified account, the billionaire, who has proposed to take Twitter private in a $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,37,465 crore) deal, said, "They should pretend to work somewhere else."

Musk would "review and approve" any cases where they could not meet the minimum, according to the memo.

Tesla joins a wave of companies mandating a return to office for employees. While some big employers have embraced voluntary work-from-home policies permanently, others including Alphabet's Google are betting that it is best to push in-person interactions among colleagues.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted in March that Twitter offices would be reopening but employees could still work from home if they wanted to.

"Wherever you feel most productive and creative is where you will work and that includes working from home full-time forever," Agrawal said in a tweet dated March 3.

Meanwhile, Facebook-owner Meta announced in April that employees are no longer required to have COVID-19 boosters to enter its offices in the United States, a company spokesperson said. The social media company previously said that all workers returning to the office would have to present proof of their booster jabs, while the company monitored the Omicron variant situation.

© Thomson Reuters 2022